The Paper Trail: Lincoln Ends BMI Requirement

Fierce criticism and public outcry isn't the kind of attention a school wants when it institutes a new graduation requirement. Unfortunately for Lincoln University, a small college in southeastern Pennsylvania, that was the reaction to the school's body mass index graduation requirement. National media outlets covered the controversy, and all kinds of pundits chimed in.

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Lincoln has now canceled its controversial policy, the Lincolnianreports. Instead, the school will make the physical education course - which was to be mandatory for any upcoming Lincoln grad with a BMI greater than 30 - an optional class.

Perhaps the tipping point for the cancellation came Friday at a "heated" faculty meeting, the report says. Some called the policy discriminatory.

"We don't want people to feel like they're being picked on," Lincoln President Ivory Nelson tells the Lincolnian.

The faculty altered the school's approach to health issues, focusing on an introductory-level course in which instructors will spend time discussing health risks with students.